At first it seemed like just another press conference on sexual abuse by Catholic priests. The invitation was about a new book: "Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church" by Leon Podles, a scholar whom I'd last interviewed almost 10 years ago about his prior book "Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity."
So I showed up at the National Press Club Tuesday morning. What I discovered is probably the first R-rated account of what was really done to all those thousands of mostly teenage boys by abuser priests overseen by compliant bishops. It takes a strong stomach to work through the first few chapters that give the gory details about this ecclesiastical horror show.
Previous books on abuse, Podles told us, had been sanitized by not going into detail what sorts of rape, torture and sadism were perpetrated on innocent children. Not his. He had to form his own publishing company to get the book out after the publisher that commissioned the book backed out and no other publisher would take it because of the sexual content.
credit: Snogren Design
"Only a tiny fraction of the truth has come out," he told about 10 of us at his press conference. "Now people will understand why abuse victims cannot 'get over' it, why they have problems keeping a job and staying married."
When they tell church authorities, "They're regarded as whiners and moneygrubbers," he said. When sympathetic state legislators have tried extending the statute of limitations for abuse victims, "the Catholic Church has fought this tooth and nail.
"Bishops fear that if the truth were known, many, like Cardinal [Bernard] Law, would lose their jobs."
Podles had a personal encounter with this evil attending a private Catholic boys school years ago while considering the priesthood. He detected a strong current of homosexuality about the place; then his roommate committed a sexual act on him while he slept. When Podles reported the incident to the rector at dawn, the priest did not believe him. The roommate went on to become a Dominican who was then booted out of the order for his gay activities. He eventually died of AIDS. Podles, who left the school the following day, remains a Roman Catholic but mourns the evil afflicting his church. Every pope since Paul VI, he says, has known how bad the situation is.
"John Paul II did nothing about abuse except mourn it," he told us. "Benedict has still not disciplined bishops who permitted abuse."
Tom Doyle, a Catholic priest and expert in canon law, was also at the press conference. Many priests, he said, "are seriously disturbed and sexually dysfunctional. In seminary, their sexual development is frozen at adolescence. Emotionally, they are 12 or 13."
No wonder, he added, that the typical victim is also 12 or 13 years old.
I'd expected a boring book launch, but I was intrigued enough to hang around for lunch afterwards. (The crab cakes and wine were a hook, I must admit). Today, Doyle was telling us, abuse stats are lower because there are fewer priests and kids have wised up as to what sex abuse looks like.
As for the unfortunates who were preyed upon up until this century, "The only place these people can get decent treatment is in the civil courts," he said. "They still get beaten to the ground by the bishops and their lawyers."
— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times
Comments (8)
It certainly is gratifying that finally, FINALLY, the total corruption of the miters and red hats is being exposed. But only when their cushy lifestyle is in jeopardy will anything change. As long as the Kool-Aid drinkers keep supporting the Bish Club gravy train, the facilitators of child rape and molestation are safe. How do they all sleep at night?
Posted by hrh | January 18, 2008 2:24 AM
"The Truth will set you free", but we don't get any of that from the Roman Catholic Church. The people have been so ingrained in the rules and regulations of the RCC to what they HAVE to do to be Catholics & their parents before them, generation after generation, that they are all such a paranoid, frightend bunch, that they can't see the forest for the trees. It's just so pathetic to watch it all happen. This terrible thing of the RCC's brain-washing the people will not stop until the people get smart and say "NO MORE!" They are getting smarter but the poor Hispanics are now the ones that are getting all the attention and help etc., thru the persuading the illegal immigrants that they have a human-rights reason to stay here. The RCC wants you to obey their laws without thinking but not the laws of the USA. How hypocrital but what else is new when priests rape little children. Thank God for books like this that really tell the truth.
Posted by gloria | January 18, 2008 4:36 AM
Mr. Podles granted me permission to print the Introduction of "Sacrilege" in my column:
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/abbott/071109
Posted by Matt C. Abbott | January 18, 2008 6:06 AM
It was not long ago a top member of the Vatican was saying how well the church was responding, In tackling the abuse scandal, If they are why is the church still refusung to give up its secrets, A judge as just ordered a diocese to hand over all data
Posted by Michael McManus | January 18, 2008 10:11 PM
There are bad people in every walk of life. The tragedy here is that in some dioceses homosexuals were (and may still be) actively recruited to the priesthood. Think about it. Birds of a feather flock together. If the bishop is gay, you will find many gay priests and they will be given the choicest parishes and important positions in the chancery. Most of those dioceses are also riddled with dissent.
But the fact that there are bad men in the Church doesn't equate to the Church being evil. We need a good cleansing, but so do many others. The irony is that some of the same people who deplore the abuse in the Catholic Church, praise the open-mindedness of the Episcopal Church which ordains active homosexuals, supports gay marriage, and endorses all kinds of other depravities.
In the Catholic Church we have the doctrine. Now let's demand that our spiritual leaders live up to it instead of being like the unfaithful sons of Eli who glutted on the sacrificial meats offered to the Lord and had sexual relations with the women who served outside the meeting tent. (1 Samuel 2)
Posted by Mary Ann Kreitzer | January 23, 2008 3:17 PM
Assuming that the issue is homosexual in nature is the very height of folly. Homosexuality is not a primary factor in pedophilia. In fact, even those pedophiles who do abuse boys are often not classifiable as homosexual as they are not sexually attracted to physically mature males.
Posted by Jeff | March 26, 2008 2:35 AM
I am a missionary priest from the United States working in Mexico for the past 30 years. I agree with Mary Ann Kreitzer, because I believe that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ and is His Church until the end of time. I thank God for Leon Podles' book, and I ask for suggestions on what can priests who are faithful to the Magisterium do in order to stop clergy sexual abuse in non-English-speaking countries where the crisis has still not been addressed. We are living fifty years back. We priests take a vow of obedience to our bishops. What are we supposed to do when bishops tolerate these cases and continue living in denial after all the exposes in the USA and other English-speaking countries? I have done quite a bit to confront this crisis in Mexico and I feel I'm getting absolutely nowhere. My words, both spoken and written, seem to fall on deaf ears. Do we need a SNAP in the Church, or what?
Posted by Charles Carpenter | April 18, 2008 3:05 PM
Dear Jeff: If an adult heterosexual male feels sexually attracted to a girl between the ages of 14 and 17, would this temptation suggest he is a pedophile? We should consider this temptation to be within normal heterosexuality, as long as he is also attracted to older women. But if he acts out on a 16-year-old girl, he would be considered a criminal. The correct term for 95% of the priests involved in sexual abuse of minors is homosexuality, plain and simple, directed toward teenagers (15-17). Perhaps we should call this ephebophilia (post-pubescent attraction), but the reason most priests choose teenage boys is because these boys are more willing to be groomed by these older predators: allowing these boys to drive their car, spend time in the rectory doing whatever they please, go out on weekends to cabins in the woods, drink, smoke pot, receive money, etc. This does not mean these men are not attracted to young men over 18. In the Chicago Study of over 2,000 priest predators, according to Philip Jenkins (in "The New Anti-Catholicism"), only one priest (not one percent of the priests) was a true pedophile. "Pedophilia" is the legal term for sexual abuse of any minor, but it is not the scientific term according to the DSM.
Posted by Charles Carpenter | April 18, 2008 4:42 PM